


choices lead us places only we know

by fearless_seas



Series: We Were Made of Sunshine and Gold [10]
Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Angst, Betrayal, M/M, Memories, Unrequited Love, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:48:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25773112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fearless_seas/pseuds/fearless_seas
Summary: Despite everything, Esteban will always miss him. Even if he doesn't have the right to.
Relationships: Pierre Gasly/Charles Leclerc, Pierre Gasly/Esteban Ocon
Series: We Were Made of Sunshine and Gold [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1032399
Comments: 6
Kudos: 13





	choices lead us places only we know

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry it's been so long since I have worked on this series. I've been really invested in my Proquet series! This fic deals with the subtle aftermath of Esteban realizing just how much he's hurt Pierre by alienating him after Esteban found out about his relationship with Charles at the party. Hope you enjoy.

**July 24th, 2014**

_____________________________________

You know when it truly hit you… don’t you?

It hit you at the funeral. 

You felt him long before you saw him. It was the sudden sensation that only once-connected souls feel. A beating moment where each question is hanging with indecision and the universe rolls to slow. Your breath hitches dangerously in your throat as the crowd trembled with desensitized life around you. Each face is creased with agony and distance between their tear-shot stares; eyes that only narrow on the trodden soil below their feet. You rub your toe into the cobblestones, ones that had been walked by thousands who’d never known them ever again. And you felt numb as everyone else. Your ribcage pulsated dimmed life into the hollowness of your bones. 

Maybe Pierre felt you too. You hope for this because across the sea of bent heads, you both looked up at each other in a precise moment. Even after all these months, you both still know one another--you still hankered for one another. And you craved one thing more than anything: the way he'd once glanced to you. Time can never erase the years that he had spent writing himself across the pages of your history book. Even so much as you attempt to shred the binded pages. 

A desperation wrote itself across the lids of Pierre’s eyes, a plea for release that weighed on his bottom lip. The same desperation caused your fingers to crumble weakly into your fist. And you only wanted to step across the church lot towards him and gather him into your arms with some brilliancy. A breeze trickled across the streets. It tousled at Pierre’s hair with a gentleness as though it were a wave rolling across a crystal shore. The gaze you shared never broke. Even as the coffin came down the stone steps; even as it came to a rest in the courtyard; even as the sea of heads bowed towards the body of your friend. 

_Jules_.

You feel selfish because all you can think about is how you haven’t answered his calls in months. Or how you haven’t heard his voice in far longer. _But I’ll never admit that I miss him._ Pierre looked shattered. A kaleidoscope of fervent light that’d scattered itself in pieces across the floor. A softness framed the blue of his eyes. And you remembered all that he had done--all that he had forced himself to do in an attempt to keep you around. By God, if guilt didn’t beat your bones into the ground. The softness of his face did it’s best to conceal the bitterness. But the bitterness… was for you. It wrote itself within the crease in his furrowed brow. 

_How could you?_ It cut without words. 

Before you could think of an answer to his unpresented question, Pierre’s gaze was torn away to something unseen. Curious, you follow the flutter of his lashes until it fell upon what he had been looking towards. A parade of pin-pricks trembles in your chest, a pinched sensation that radiated through your veins. _Charles_. Pierre passed one last glance towards you: a farewell that bit at the corners of his teeth with reluctance and regret. Neither of you wanted to turn away. But, in the end, there was a choice made that day at the funeral under the July sun. 

_You’ll always be number two_. 

And you, Esteban, knew it was your fault, for turning him away. You took a step forward, and then back. It was as though you could not decide if you wanted to run from him or to him. It was the both of you there, breathing in a silence only you two understood. The heart that beat frantically within you reminded you of thrill rides in the snow, Pierre squealing the wheels of a kart across the ice. Somehow, you didn’t want to let him go; despite the fade of these memories with time. But the choice was made for you.

 _Goodbye, Esteban_ , a bottomless sigh ached across a grief-stricken face. 

It was the farewell you’d both never received. The one that you had never given him. That’s why you hesitated. Before you knew it, Pierre had disappeared into the crowd and in just a moment Charles reappeared. Effortlessly, Pierre drew him into his arms as you had always dreamed of him doing to you since you were young children. The unintentioned representations of love you oh-so craved. You observed them for a moment. And you lost yourself in the subtle thumb Pierre traced over Charles’ delicate knuckles or in the finger he occasionally draped over his puffy cheeks. 

So you drew in a breath. Your eyes begin swam with tears, your chest with fear; a heart of horrors you’d never wished to explore. You passed him a last glance--even if _he_ wasn’t looking back. Pierre had grown over these years. A maturity had bitten at the softness that once coated his features. Even despite all these, all these changes, you knew the ghost of a childhood smile would one day reawaken. The coffin glistened as a barrier between you two. 

_It was me. It was you_. 

Kids who’d once scraped their knees on the pavement. 

_It was our secrets. It was all our game_. 

Youths who’d competed limb for limb at the track. 

_It was us and nothing more._

Now adults who barely know one another. 

Pierre had made a choice he had deserved to make. Before he could seek you out again, you turned your simper towards the street and began the walk to your hotel room. But you felt Pierre’s eyes on you as you pivoted the corner and disappeared from sight. You’d both made one another; constructed from paper and string like marionettes. Neither of you will ever be who you once were to one another. Many choices had gotten you where you were in that precise moment. 

In a sea of tear-bitten faces, Pierre’s never moved once. Not with regret or agony, memorial or sadness because he busied himself with Charles who appeared as though he hadn't slept in days. 

All you thought was: _how’d I make it all go wrong?_

And you already knew. Oh, you knew… 

**Author's Note:**

> This is a little shorter than usual but, hey, it's content nonetheless. If you enjoyed, follow my Tumblr @pieregasly and support your content creators by commenting! Thank you :)
> 
> \- Presley


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